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Meet Mayor Crack Head
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Joe Dixon
May 17, 2013, 1:33:10 PM5/17/13
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A cellphone video that appears to show Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack
cocaine is being shopped around Toronto by a group of Somali men involved
in the drug trade.
Two Toronto Star reporters have viewed the video three times. It appears
to show Ford in a room, sitting in a chair, wearing a white shirt, top
buttons open, inhaling from what appears to be a glass crack pipe. Ford
is incoherent, trading jibes with an off-camera speaker who goads the
clearly impaired mayor by raising topics including Liberal Leader Justin
Trudeau and the Don Bosco high school football team Ford coaches.
“I’m f---ing right-wing,” Ford appears to mutter at one point. “Everyone
expects me to be right-wing. I’m just supposed to be this great.…” and
his voice trails off. At another point he is heard calling Trudeau a
“fag.” Later in the 90-second video he is asked about the football team
and he appears to say (though he is mumbling), “they are just f---ing
minorities.”
The Star had no way to verify the authenticity of the video, which
appears to clearly show Ford in a well-lit room. The Star was told the
video was shot during the past winter at a house south of Dixon Rd. and
Kipling Avenue. What follows is an account based on what both reporters
viewed on the video screen. Attempts to reach the mayor and members of
his staff to get comment on this story were unsuccessful.
A lawyer retained by Ford, Dennis Morris, said that Thursday evening’s
publication by the U.S.-based Gawker website of some details related to
the video was “false and defamatory.” Morris told the Star that by
viewing any video it is impossible to tell what a person is doing. “How
can you indicate what the person is actually doing or smoking?” Morris
said.
Ford’s chief of staff, Mark Towhey, would not listen to questions by the
Star on Thursday night and abruptly hung up when the Star called.
The video was taken on a smartphone by a person who said he has supplied
crack cocaine to the mayor.
Throughout the video Ford’s eyes are half-closed. He lolls back in his
chair, sometimes waving his arms around erratically. He raises a lighter
in his hand at several points and moves it in a circle motion beneath the
glass bowl of the pipe, then inhales deeply.
The Star reporters (Donovan and Doolittle) were shown the video on the
evening of Friday, May 3, in the back of a car parked in an apartment
complex at Dixon Rd. near Kipling Ave. in the north end of Etobicoke. The
reporters were allowed to watch and listen to the video three times.
After, both reporters separately made written notes of what they saw and
heard. Both reporters, prior to watching the video, studied numerous city-
hall-related videos of Ford and, to the best of the reporter’s abilities,
they separately concluded the man in the video was Ford.
In the video, what appears to be afternoon sunlight is streaming through
partially closed window blinds, lighting Ford’s face. The video ends with
the ringing of a cellphone (it is not clear if it is the cellphone that
is being used to video the scene). The ring tone, which is a song,
startles the mayor, whose slitted eyes open a bit, and he is heard to
say, “That phone better not be on.”
The Star was approached with an offer to purchase the video shortly after
the Star’s story on Ford’s removal from the Garrison Ball due to apparent
intoxication of some sort. The story, published March 26 of this year,
described a concern by unnamed associates and staffers at city hall that
Ford had a substance abuse problem. Ford dismissed the Star story, called
the Star “pathological liars” and invited the newspaper to sue him.
Garrison Ball attendees interviewed by the Star did not say they smelled
alcohol. One said, “He seemed either drunk, high or had a medical
condition.”
After the story was published the Star was contacted by two separate
people who purported to have information on Ford abusing crack cocaine.
One person, who described himself as an organizer in the Somali
community, told the Star he had copies of a video that, he said, showed
Ford smoking crack. This man was acting as a sort of broker for the
person who had shot the video. What followed was a protracted discussion
between the man and Star reporters. The broker said he represented two
Somali men who had supplied crack cocaine to the mayor in the Dixon Rd.
area. The Star was not able to verify those claims.
The man said his two associates (one had been present when the video was
made and had done the filming) wanted “six figures for the video.” At
another point he said they had originally wanted $1 million, but he had
convinced them to lower the price. Asked why they were selling the video,
the man said the two who claimed ownership of the video wanted to make a
change in their lives and use the money to move out west to Calgary.
The Star did not pay money and did not obtain a copy of the video.
Initially, the Somali man who contacted the Star said he had information
about “a Toronto politician.” When the Star met him the first time, he
showed a photo of Ford dressed in sweatpants, standing in the driveway of
a brick house with three other men. The one on the left in the picture
had apparently been killed the previous week on King St. near the Loki
Lounge. The man, with his strong forehead and distinctive jaw line,
looked like Anthony Smith, 21, who indeed had been killed recently.
Over the last month the Star has had several meetings with the man who
was acting as a broker, culminating with the May 3 meeting at the Dixon
Rd. apartment complex.
The reporters had told the man that they wanted to see the video. A
meeting was arranged. First, the reporters were told to drive to the
parking lot of an Etobicoke strip mall. They were told to leave their
bags and cellphones in their own cars and get in his. The drive lasted
less than five minutes. They pulled into the parking lot of the Dixon Rd.
highrise complex.
The man got out of his car and returned with his associate.
The associate, also Somali, was a man in his early to mid-20s. He looked
nervous and was shaking slightly. He had thick scabs on his arm.
He pulled out an iPhone — he would not let the reporters hold it. At
first he wouldn’t let the sound play, but then relented.
In a video clip less than two minutes long, an incoherent and rambling
Mayor Rob Ford can clearly be seen smoking what appears to be crack
cocaine.
He is sitting on a chair holding a glass pipe with a blackened top and a
lighter. Ford is the only person on the video, but there are at least two
other people in the room — one, a man who said he is his dealer, secretly
recording him, and another, an anonymous voice asking him questions.
The footage begins with the mayor mumbling. His eyes are half-closed. He
waves his arms around erratically. A man’s voice tells him he should be
coaching football because that’s what he’s good at.
Ford agrees and nods his head, bobbing on his chair.
He says something like “Yeah, I take these kids . . . minorities” but
soon he rambles off again.
Ford says something like: “Everyone expects me to be right-wing,
I’m . . .” and again he trails off.
At one point he raises the lighter and moves it in a circle motion
beneath the pipe, inhaling deeply.
Next, the voice raises the name of Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. The man
says he can’t stand him and that he wants to shove his foot up the young
leader’s “ass so far it comes out the other end.”
Ford nods and bobs on his chair and appears to say, “Justin Trudeau’s a
fag.”
The man taping the mayor keeps the video trained on him. Then the phone
rings. Ford looks at the camera and says something like “that better not
be on.”
The phone shuts off.
cocaine is being shopped around Toronto by a group of Somali men involved
in the drug trade.
Two Toronto Star reporters have viewed the video three times. It appears
to show Ford in a room, sitting in a chair, wearing a white shirt, top
buttons open, inhaling from what appears to be a glass crack pipe. Ford
is incoherent, trading jibes with an off-camera speaker who goads the
clearly impaired mayor by raising topics including Liberal Leader Justin
Trudeau and the Don Bosco high school football team Ford coaches.
“I’m f---ing right-wing,” Ford appears to mutter at one point. “Everyone
expects me to be right-wing. I’m just supposed to be this great.…” and
his voice trails off. At another point he is heard calling Trudeau a
“fag.” Later in the 90-second video he is asked about the football team
and he appears to say (though he is mumbling), “they are just f---ing
minorities.”
The Star had no way to verify the authenticity of the video, which
appears to clearly show Ford in a well-lit room. The Star was told the
video was shot during the past winter at a house south of Dixon Rd. and
Kipling Avenue. What follows is an account based on what both reporters
viewed on the video screen. Attempts to reach the mayor and members of
his staff to get comment on this story were unsuccessful.
A lawyer retained by Ford, Dennis Morris, said that Thursday evening’s
publication by the U.S.-based Gawker website of some details related to
the video was “false and defamatory.” Morris told the Star that by
viewing any video it is impossible to tell what a person is doing. “How
can you indicate what the person is actually doing or smoking?” Morris
said.
Ford’s chief of staff, Mark Towhey, would not listen to questions by the
Star on Thursday night and abruptly hung up when the Star called.
The video was taken on a smartphone by a person who said he has supplied
crack cocaine to the mayor.
Throughout the video Ford’s eyes are half-closed. He lolls back in his
chair, sometimes waving his arms around erratically. He raises a lighter
in his hand at several points and moves it in a circle motion beneath the
glass bowl of the pipe, then inhales deeply.
The Star reporters (Donovan and Doolittle) were shown the video on the
evening of Friday, May 3, in the back of a car parked in an apartment
complex at Dixon Rd. near Kipling Ave. in the north end of Etobicoke. The
reporters were allowed to watch and listen to the video three times.
After, both reporters separately made written notes of what they saw and
heard. Both reporters, prior to watching the video, studied numerous city-
hall-related videos of Ford and, to the best of the reporter’s abilities,
they separately concluded the man in the video was Ford.
In the video, what appears to be afternoon sunlight is streaming through
partially closed window blinds, lighting Ford’s face. The video ends with
the ringing of a cellphone (it is not clear if it is the cellphone that
is being used to video the scene). The ring tone, which is a song,
startles the mayor, whose slitted eyes open a bit, and he is heard to
say, “That phone better not be on.”
The Star was approached with an offer to purchase the video shortly after
the Star’s story on Ford’s removal from the Garrison Ball due to apparent
intoxication of some sort. The story, published March 26 of this year,
described a concern by unnamed associates and staffers at city hall that
Ford had a substance abuse problem. Ford dismissed the Star story, called
the Star “pathological liars” and invited the newspaper to sue him.
Garrison Ball attendees interviewed by the Star did not say they smelled
alcohol. One said, “He seemed either drunk, high or had a medical
condition.”
After the story was published the Star was contacted by two separate
people who purported to have information on Ford abusing crack cocaine.
One person, who described himself as an organizer in the Somali
community, told the Star he had copies of a video that, he said, showed
Ford smoking crack. This man was acting as a sort of broker for the
person who had shot the video. What followed was a protracted discussion
between the man and Star reporters. The broker said he represented two
Somali men who had supplied crack cocaine to the mayor in the Dixon Rd.
area. The Star was not able to verify those claims.
The man said his two associates (one had been present when the video was
made and had done the filming) wanted “six figures for the video.” At
another point he said they had originally wanted $1 million, but he had
convinced them to lower the price. Asked why they were selling the video,
the man said the two who claimed ownership of the video wanted to make a
change in their lives and use the money to move out west to Calgary.
The Star did not pay money and did not obtain a copy of the video.
Initially, the Somali man who contacted the Star said he had information
about “a Toronto politician.” When the Star met him the first time, he
showed a photo of Ford dressed in sweatpants, standing in the driveway of
a brick house with three other men. The one on the left in the picture
had apparently been killed the previous week on King St. near the Loki
Lounge. The man, with his strong forehead and distinctive jaw line,
looked like Anthony Smith, 21, who indeed had been killed recently.
Over the last month the Star has had several meetings with the man who
was acting as a broker, culminating with the May 3 meeting at the Dixon
Rd. apartment complex.
The reporters had told the man that they wanted to see the video. A
meeting was arranged. First, the reporters were told to drive to the
parking lot of an Etobicoke strip mall. They were told to leave their
bags and cellphones in their own cars and get in his. The drive lasted
less than five minutes. They pulled into the parking lot of the Dixon Rd.
highrise complex.
The man got out of his car and returned with his associate.
The associate, also Somali, was a man in his early to mid-20s. He looked
nervous and was shaking slightly. He had thick scabs on his arm.
He pulled out an iPhone — he would not let the reporters hold it. At
first he wouldn’t let the sound play, but then relented.
In a video clip less than two minutes long, an incoherent and rambling
Mayor Rob Ford can clearly be seen smoking what appears to be crack
cocaine.
He is sitting on a chair holding a glass pipe with a blackened top and a
lighter. Ford is the only person on the video, but there are at least two
other people in the room — one, a man who said he is his dealer, secretly
recording him, and another, an anonymous voice asking him questions.
The footage begins with the mayor mumbling. His eyes are half-closed. He
waves his arms around erratically. A man’s voice tells him he should be
coaching football because that’s what he’s good at.
Ford agrees and nods his head, bobbing on his chair.
He says something like “Yeah, I take these kids . . . minorities” but
soon he rambles off again.
Ford says something like: “Everyone expects me to be right-wing,
I’m . . .” and again he trails off.
At one point he raises the lighter and moves it in a circle motion
beneath the pipe, inhaling deeply.
Next, the voice raises the name of Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. The man
says he can’t stand him and that he wants to shove his foot up the young
leader’s “ass so far it comes out the other end.”
Ford nods and bobs on his chair and appears to say, “Justin Trudeau’s a
fag.”
The man taping the mayor keeps the video trained on him. Then the phone
rings. Ford looks at the camera and says something like “that better not
be on.”
The phone shuts off.
Barry Bruyea
May 17, 2013, 6:05:58 PM5/17/13
to
On 17 May 2013 17:33:10 GMT, Joe Dixon <J.D...@spam.invalid> wrote:
If the Star had the video, I can see them running the story. They
don't, but they did, they could pay dearly for that and considering
Torstars financial s these days, it could be a serious gamble.
If the Star had the video, I can see them running the story. They
don't, but they did, they could pay dearly for that and considering
Torstars financial s these days, it could be a serious gamble.
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